GCSEPod - Education Anywhere

Mike Ryan, author of topics such as Classifying Materials and Representing Reactions gives us some tips on learning facts

One of the really tricky things about Science revision is learning lists of basic facts. This might be the kind of thing your teacher seems to know automatically and you haven’t a clue where to begin. The reason your teacher knows the facts is because they have probably been doing the subject for many years and these things stick. As you might not have much time before your exams, break the lists of facts down into chunks and then make links.

As an example, consider the tests for different kinds of substances in Chemistry. The same idea can be used for other topics too. There are three basic areas of testing: organic, anions and cations. Try to learn each separately. For example, cations are tested in two main ways: flame tests and sodium hydroxide precipitates. You could start by learning the flame colours. Next, break the sodium hydroxide reactions down into sets:

• Some show no change and some give a precipitate.

• Some of these precipitates are coloured and some are white.

• Some of these white precipitates redissolve in excess sodium hydroxide and some do not.

Try learning each set of outcomes in turn. Remember, each GCSEPod title highlights the key facts you need to know.

Too many students read through their notes on this kind of thing and are happy to “sort of know it”. The successful student is the one who spends a few minutes of concentrated time and REALLY KNOWS IT.

Have you ever been in a school play? For weeks you can read the lines from the script, until one day the director says that books are no longer allowed. It’s scary but everyone makes that special effort and gets the job done. The cast members help each other. Parents and friends help test the actors to make sure that they know the lines properly. Some will even ask you to explain your role in the play to make sure that you really understand it. Do you see the parallels? Make the big effort now and your exams will be a smash hit with a happy ending, rather than a Shakespearean tragedy!

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Nicola Greener, author of topics such as Lord of the Flies and Media and Non-Fiction Texts, offers up some advice for English exams

The first thing to remember is that tone is not a technique in English.  It is a concept that is constructed through other techniques such as word choice or vocabulary, register, structure, sound devices, imagery, exaggeration, and point of view, among others.

It is the combination of these techniques that suggest the tone or attitude of the piece you’re reading.  One way to think about it is to ask yourself how it would sound if it were spoken aloud. This is because the words you use to identify tone are all words to do with speaking in a particular way.

For example, is the voice in the text angry or sarcastic? Is it moaning or critical? Humorous or ironic?  All of these words can be used to describe the tone of a passage. You could listen to some GCSEPod English titles to hear how certain quotes or different styles of writing are spoken aloud.

If you are asked a question about tone, or tone is suggested as one of the concepts that you need to look at in order to answer a particular question, then it should be quite obvious and fairly easy to recognise in the passage you have been given.

When answering these types of questions, you need to make sure that you place it in a context.  This means that you have to show what words, phrases, structures, sounds and so on have alerted you to the tone that is being used. Then you need to explain how the words you have chosen are linked to the tone you have identified.

Other tone words to think about when you’re trying to identify tone are: jovial, bitter, scornful, direct, formal, informal, nostalgic, reflective, optimistic and pessimistic. There are many more, just consider all the ways that language can be spoken to demonstrate a particular meaning.

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Charlotte Young, author of titles such as Angles and Circles, offers up some tasty advice on statistics

A reported statistic is that in a lifetime, a British person will eat half a tonne of chocolate. This is told in a tone that assumes this is very high. But the figure is given in a way that makes it difficult to appreciate what this means in everyday life.

Let’s put this statistic into context. Half a tonne is 500kg. Let’s say a person in Britain lives to the age of 70.  If we work out 500 divided by 70, we can work out that this person eats about 7.1kg of chocolate per year. That’s just less than 140g of chocolate per week, which is less than 20g per day. This is the weight of a small bag of crisps. This may or may not seem like a lot of chocolate to you!

So, before you allow yourself to be talked into feeling shock at a statistic, which is not delivered in a form that you can relate to, try to convert it into a form where it is more meaningful.

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Louise Bessant, author of our Circulation title, looks at how we can use pre-release papers to our advantage

If you’re sitting OCR Twenty First Century Science GCSE a section of your final exam will consist of some questions on the ‘Pre-Release’ paper, which is an article on a scientific theory or issue.  So, you’re given information before the exam! Sounds great! BUT, you don’t know what the questions on the day will be, only that some of them will be related to the article. You might not have had an exam like this before, so here are some tips on how to get the best out of your paper:

• You can annotate and highlight the article in any way that like.  It is your resource so make it work for you.

• Spend some time familiarising yourself with the article.  Not memorising it; you don’t need to.  But make sure that you have really read it thoroughly and are confident you know what it’s about.  Talk to your friends about it.  Be honest with yourself. If you only have a vague idea you should spend some more time reading and thinking about the article.

• Read through the article again and highlight any key scientific ideas or key words you have learnt about throughout the different units of your GCSE course.

• If you don’t understand a word, sentence or idea, don’t panic! Highlight it in a different colour and find out about using it using your science teacher, class mates, or GCSEPod.

• Your teacher will probably provide you with some examples of questions that could be asked.  If not, ask for some.  Take advantage of this and prepare some answers.  Use your textbook or notes to check.  Doing this will help your revision for the exam.  Again – if you don’t know the answer – go and find it out.

• Practice with your friends.  There is no guarantee that your list of questions will appear on the exam.  Asking questions and talking about the answers is a great way to revise, so think about some questions of your own and get your friends to do the same.

If you do all of these points you should walk into the exam feeling confident that you’re as prepared as you can be for this type of exam.You could also apply these tips to pre-release papers from other exam boards and subjects as well. Good luck!

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Nic Worgan, English teacher and author of topics such as Animal Farm, looks at the most effective ways of revising for English language

English Language isn’t the most straightforward of exams to revise for, but with some sensible approaches, you can make sure you go into the exam fully prepared. Your revision needs to be focused on the exam at this stage in the year, so here are some tips for the sort of things you need to cover.

First and foremost, you must make sure you know exactly what to expect from the exam. Obviously, you can’t predict the exact questions you’ll be asked, but you can be prepared in terms of knowing what type of questions generally come up and have the best idea you can about how to answer them. The most effective way to do this is to get hold of a past paper, perhaps from the exam board’s website or from your teacher, and make a note of the types of questions you will be required to answer.

Another thing you need to get your head around is the time you can spend on each section of the exam. Timing in the exams is very tight, so you need to make sure you know exactly how long to spend on each section. Many people don’t get the grade they want because they over-run a few minutes on each section, failing to leave long enough to finish the last section. This could easily make the difference in a grade.

Next, take each question “type” and make sure you give yourself plenty of opportunity to complete responses under timed conditions. Try to adapt the task to something that interests you to take some of the pain out of revision! For example, if you know you will have to complete some descriptive writing in the exam, make up a question for yourself about something you enjoy. Crazy about football? Describe the scene at a local football match. Love shopping? Describe a busy shopping street on Christmas Eve.

If you know you are likely to have to write an informal letter, you could actually write a real letter to a friend or relative. This would make for useful revision in terms of getting the correct tone for your letter and giving you chance to use a “real” example of the kind of task you may face in the exam.

Another technique you could use could be to create a “success criteria” for each type of writing task you may be faced with in the exam, which could be a list of five or six “rules” that you must follow for each type of task. If you do this, stick them up on your wall rather than hiding them in a folder where you may not look at them.

However you approach revising English, keep it as interesting as you can. Don’t forget that GCSEPod English and the ‘Recommended for you‘ section can help you along the way!

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History teacher, Emily Thomas, offers up some advice on revision timetables and how you can make the most of holidays and study leave

Many revision timetables make the same mistake: they are too ambitious. If you try to do too much you will quickly fall behind. This can be demoralising, and a sense of panic may set in as the exams get closer and the list of things you have to squeeze in at the last minute gets longer.

One way to avoid this is by making sure that you leave a few days just before the exams start (and the exam period itself) free of timetabled revision slots, at least to begin with. This means that you will have time to revisit anything that you feel you need more time on, and so won’t find your work backing up.

It’s also really important to think about how much you can do in a slot. Let’s say that you are on study leave, and are dividing your day into three slots of two and a half hours, including breaks. You should use your slots to revise specific topics or units, not just subjects in general. To keep your day interesting, you could tackle topics from three different subjects in three slots. Your timetable might look something like this:

10.30am–1.00pm: History – Changing Life in Nazi Germany
1.00pm–1.30pm: Lunch
1.30pm–4.00pm: Biology – Cells
4.00 pm–6.30pm: RS – Human Relationships
6.30pm: Finish for the day.

In each of your two and a half hour slots, allow two fifteen minute breaks. Be strict with yourself. If you put the TV on or log-on to the Internet, minutes will turn into hours. Have a drink and move around a bit, then get back to work. Don’t forget, GCSEPod has lots of different topics that would fit nicely into your day and the GCSEPod Facebook revision planner could help you too!

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Helen Nurton, Geography teacher and author of Energy and Economic Systems, looks at how world news can help with your Geography GCSE

You’ll have looked at case studies as part of your Geography course. Hopefully your teacher will have been able to use some recent examples as case studies for you, and you might have looked at real-life Geography examples going on in the world.

There is so much ‘Geography’ going on at the moment, it really is a good idea to keep an eye on the news and try to use up-to-date examples and case studies whenever you can. Examiners like candidates who use relevant, up-to-date examples. This is because it shows they can put their geographical knowledge into practice, rather than just churning out what they have learnt from a textbook.

Some examples of relevant news stories are:

The Haiti and Chile Earthquakes
The Haiti earthquake has had a huge impact in terms of death toll (believed to be around 270,000) and it has clearly illustrated some of the problems of coping with a natural disaster in a Less Economically Developed Country (LEDC). At the time of writing, the death toll in Chile is reported to be much lower (in the hundreds), even though it was a bigger earthquake. You can read about some of the reasons for this here.

Floods in Madeira
The flash floods in Madeira are a good example of a Weather and Climate case study.  The floods have been comprehensively covered by most of the main television stations and newspapers – search their websites for details. This article is a good starting point.

Cadburys Takeover
The takeover of Cadburys by Kraft (an American multinational company) was in the news in February. Many specifications expect you to study industry, TNCs or globalisation and this story is a good example of all of these. You need to be asking yourself questions like – how will this affect jobs at British plants? How will this affect a British company? How is this an example of globalisation?

Another relatively recent example of job losses in the manufacturing sector can be found here. The article describes the 1,700 job losses from the Corus steel firm in December 2009.

Green homes
On March 2nd 2010, Ed Miliband (The Energy and Climate Change Secretary) announced loans for homeowners to make improvements to their homes that will make them more energy efficient. Check out the whole story on the Guardian website.

So, keep an eye on the news – there is a lot going on in the world and lots of it is linked to topics you study at GCSE. Case studies and examples are essential, especially if you are aiming for higher grades. Don’t forget about the GCSEPod Geography case studies that can help you as well!

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Nic Worgan, English teacher and author of topics Animal Farm and Poetry from Other Cultures: Cluster One and Two, offers up some tips on an essential skill

Proofreading is a vital skill that you’ll need not only to pass your exams, but in life beyond school. So, it is a skill that is definitely worth developing. Not only can effective proofreading raise your grade in the English exam (amongst other subjects), it could also help secure you a job when you go into the big wide world of work!

So, how should you approach proofreading? If you are proofreading coursework or class work and you have time, the best thing to do is leave it a while after you’ve finished writing (about a day), and then go back and read over your work carefully with “fresh eyes”. You may spot a mistake you would have missed if you proof read straight after writing. Another tip is to read your work out loud. If something doesn’t sound right, it probably needs to be changed. It is also a good idea to keep a notebook handy and make a note of mistakes you repeatedly make. For example, if you get “their/there” mixed up, it is worth noting this down and taking action to correct this mistake.

But what if you’re in an exam and you are unable to read out loud, or come back to your paper at another time? Well, there are still things you can do. Now is the time when you might be starting to complete timed responses in class. Get into the habit now of making sure you have a few minutes left at the end of each section to read over your work. This will never be a waste of time because there will be something you will be able to correct and/or improve. When you have finished a section in the exam, take a moment to take a breath then proofread. You never know, you might just spot the mistake that would have cost you a grade, so it isn’t worth the risk of skipping this essential step. Although timing is tight in exams, there isn’t an examiner in the world who would tell you that proof reading is not important.

So, make mistake-spotting as important in your writing as everything else. Getting into the habit of this now could not only help to secure you the grades you deserve, but could also make sure your future job application doesn’t end up in the bin!

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Louise Bessant, author of our Circulation title, takes a look at a controversial issue relevant to your GCSE studies

Dr Andrew Wakefield was in the news recently because of his study on the side effects of the MMR vaccine, and was described as ‘unethical’ by the General Medical Council.  Meanwhile, thousands of girls have received the HPV vaccine to protect against cervical cancer, and a new vaccination against the emerging swine flu virus was given to health workers and vulnerable people last summer.

So, how do vaccines work?  Vaccines ‘kick start’ your immune system. Your body is given the answer to a disease by giving it a sneak preview of the question.

Firstly, we need to know about our immune response.  White blood cells patrol around our body.  All types of cells have different shaped markers on them, called antigens, to make them unique.  White blood cells can tell by the antigens on a cell if it is an unwelcome invader.

We fall ill with a disease as the pathogen takes hold.  Our body produces white blood cells to fight it off, and we recover.  Most of the white blood cells die, but some that can fight that particular disease remain in your blood.

The next time they detect the invader these particular white blood cells remember it and reproduce very rapidly.  The invaders are dealt with before you become ill; you are immune. This is ‘immune memory’ and is why most people only catch diseases such as chicken pox and measles once.

But some microorganisms are too powerful and fast-acting for our bodies to deal with, and can cause severe disability or death.  Vaccination prevents this by cleverly using your immune memory.

When you’re vaccinated against a disease, you are given either a small amount of the pathogen, a modified safe form of it, its antigens, or a very similar version. The white blood cells go into action, and will remember the pathogen without you contracting the disease. Your body is already defended against the disease when you meet the pathogen for the first time.

If our immune memory is so good, why do hundreds of thousands of patients receive a flu vaccine every year? It isn’t because the body has forgotten, it is because the flu virus mutates regularly and the body cannot recognise it.  When a new virus emerges scientists have to work very quickly to combat the new form.

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With half-term approaching, History teacher Emily Thomas suggests ways to stay focused when revising

1. Routine is crucial. Set yourself up with a revision timetable, with fixed slots in the day in which you will work. If you allocate a whole day to studying, you are likely to spend all day procrastinating, and then realise half way through Eastenders that you’d better start revising. If you do this, you’ll find yourself staying up until midnight, exhausted and unproductive. Instead, look at it like a job, with fixed start and finish times. Do a maximum of seven and a half hours of revision a day when you are on study leave. On days when you are at school, try to limit your evening work to two and a half hours. Finish at a set time, such as dinnertime. If you know that you have to finish at say, 6.30, you will work much more efficiently. Share this information with your family so that they will respect your working time and help you stick to your timetable.

2. Make your study time count for more. Find a quiet space away from other people. Turn your phone, television and radio off. Unless you need your computer for a specific reason, turn that off too. If you know that something distracts you, however silly, put it away and avoid it. Put your headphones in if you’re listening to GCSEPod!

3. Don’t listen to your friends when they talk about revision. People almost never tell the truth about how much revision they are doing! If friends suggest that you revise together, think carefully about whether this is a good idea. Joint revision sessions often become a forum for sharing anxieties, for procrastination, or for one person to show off. You will generally come away feeling less confident than you did before.

Don’t forget, GCSEPod can help you revise across 8 different subjects!

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